The Coffin Dancer (Lincoln Rhyme 2)

"Sachs, don't give me any crap."

"I'm going to check something, Rhyme."

There was silence for a moment.

"Sachs? . . . Sachs, you there? What the hell . . . ?"

"Rhyme, listen--I just hit the tape with the PoliLight. And guess what? There's a partial on it! I've got one of the Dancer's prints!"

That stopped him for a moment but he soon resumed his tirade again. He was well into his lecture before he realized that he was reading the riot act to an empty line.

She was sooty and had a stunned look about her.

"No dressing-down, Rhyme. It was stupid but I didn't think about it. I just moved."

"What happened?" he asked. His stern visage had fallen away momentarily, he was so happy to see her alive.

"I was halfway inside. I saw the AP charge behind the door and didn't think I could make it out in time. I grabbed the woman's body out of the fridge. I was going to pull her to the kitchen window. It blew before I got halfway there."

Mel Cooper looked over the bag of evidence Sachs handed him. He examined the soot and fragments from the bomb. "M forty-five charge. TNT, with a rocker switch and forty-five-second fuse delay. The entry team knocked it over when they rammed the door; that ignited the fuse. There's graphite, so it's newer-formulation TNT. Very powerful, very bad."

"Fucker," Sellitto spat out. "Time delay . . . He wanted to make sure as many people got into the room as possible 'fore it blew."

Rhyme asked, "Anything traceable?"

"Off-the-shelf military. Won't lead us anywhere except--"

"To the asshole gave it to him," Sellitto muttered. "Phillip Hansen." The detective's phone rang and he took the call, lowered his head as he listened, nodding.

"Thank you," he said finally, shut off the phone.

"What?" Sachs asked.

The detective's eyes were closed.

Rhyme knew it was about Jerry Banks.

"Lon?"

"It's Jerry." The detective looked up. Sighed. "He'll live. But he lost his arm. They couldn't save it. Too much damage."

"Oh, no," Rhyme whispered. "Can I talk to him?"

"No," the detective said. "He's asleep."

Rhyme thought of the young man, pictured him saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, poking at his cowlick, rubbing a razor cut on his smooth, pink

chin. "I'm sorry, Lon."

The detective shook his head, much the same way Rhyme deflected bouquets of sympathy. "We got other things to worry about."

Yes, they did.

Rhyme noticed the plastic packing tape--the gag the Dancer had used. He could see, as could Sachs, a faint lipstick mark on the adhesive side.

Sachs was staring at the evidence, but it wasn't a clinical look. Not a scientist's gaze. She was troubled.

"Sachs?" he asked.